Schools do stealth rollout of ‘Meatless Mondays’

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It was the end of the school day March 20, but for the food service personnel of the Port Townsend and Chimacum school districts, the learning had just begun.

Roughly a dozen school cooks and food servers received a hands-on lesson on preparing tasty, healthy vegetarian meal options from Amy Webster, Pacific Northwest food policy coordinator for the Humane Society of the United States.

Blue Heron School in Port Townsend hosted the educational seminar, and Shannon Minahan, one of its cafeteria workers, was called upon by Webster, who guided her through a salsa recipe.

Stacey Larsen, director of food service for the Port Townsend School District, explained that her schools quietly implemented a “Meatless Mondays” program last fall, after she was invited to a one-day training workshop on vegetarian cooking by the Humane Society last spring.

“There were senior centers, colleges and other school districts there,” Larsen said. “At the end of the day, they offered to send representatives to us to provide free demonstrations, but I wanted to have a large enough class to justify the trip for them, so I invited the Chimacum School District and our local hospital staff.”

While hospital staff members were unable to attend, the two school districts were well represented, as Webster and Kristie Middleton, senior food policy director for the Humane Society, went on to demonstrate how to make protein-packed pasta marinara with white beans and red lentils, Sriracha lime tacos, corn salsa and rice-and-bean shakers.

“Shakers are like an entire USDA health value meal in a single smoothie cup,” Larsen said. “They’re used to serve salads as well. You just pour the salad dressing into the cup full of lettuce and veggies, and shake it up. I’d love for our kids to have an hour for a civilized sit-down lunch, during which they could chat with their friends, but a lot of them are so busy with meetings that they barely have time to stand in line to pay.”

OTHER BENEFITS

While the Humane Society sees “Meatless Mondays” as a means to reduce animal consumption, Larsen touted its environmental and health benefits, since plants require less labor and fewer resources to harvest than animals, while adding more plants to one’s diet offers more ways to combat obesity and heart disease.

“We want to teach our kids that there are all sorts of different ways to be healthy,” Larsen said. “Meat doesn’t have to be the main ingredient of every meal. At the same time, in order for this to succeed, these meals need to be not only healthy and quick, but also tasty. We need to serve tofu and beans in recipes that students will actually eat. That’s the benefit of working with the Humane Society, because they’ve already taste-tested these meals at schools across the country.”

Larsen is also conscious of the school district’s budget, and while sourcing the schools’ beef from Westbrook Angus in Chimacum supports local business, it’s not without its expenses.

“We still serve meat during the week, but vegetarian options are cheaper,” Larsen said. “A variety of foods helps the bottom line. Even mac and cheese, which doesn’t include meat, is a nutritious meal that kids are fond of.”

Indeed, while the Humane Society representatives with whom Larsen spoke a year ago conceded that her schools might need to offer beef or chicken to some students on “Meatless Mondays,” Larsen reported no problems with holding the line.

“They warned us that our lunch counts might be lower, but so far, we haven’t seen it,” Larsen said. “We had the opportunity to come out with a big campaign, which the Humane Society would help us market, but I just wanted to wait and see how the kids would react. At the same time, we want to let the community know that we care about their kids’ health.”